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THE CHAUDHRY-RABUKA COALITION CAKE CRUMBLES: We revisit 2000 to remind Chaudhry and others pushing for coalition politics. Part Two: The Fatal Embrace: FLP and Mahendra Chaudhry's Road to RUIN

22/8/2017

4 Comments

 

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Fijileaks: In 2000, our founding Editor-in-Chief VICTOR LAL had written a series of ten articles in Fiji's Daily Post, explaining why Chaudhry fell from power. Chaudhry agreed with the general analysis, except for what he termed 'a few incorrect assumptions'. We will chart FLP leader Mahendra Chaudhry's journey from 'political saint' to 'currency convict', arising from the debris of George Speight's failed coup of 2000. Ironically, Lal's political columns in the Fiji Sun came to an abrupt end when he exposed Chaudhry's secret $2million in his (Chaudhry's) Australian bank account. Following the abduction and deportation of Fiji Sun publisher Russell Hunter in 2008, the new management at the Fiji Sun discontinued Lal's opinion column, resulting in the founding of Fijileaks. Victor Lal will resume his Opinion Column closer to the general election.
Meanwhile, we continue with PART TWO from Fiji's Daily Post:
The Fatal Embrace:
The FLP and Chaudhry’s Road to Ruin

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Part Two
The Fatal Embrace:
The FLP and Chaudhry’s Road to Ruin

One of the greatest strengths of Mahendra Chaudhry and the Fiji Labour Party (FLP), of which he was one of the original co-founders, was their politics of multi-racialism. An analysis of the results of the elections under the previous first-past-the post voting system would show that the FLP would have won the majority of seats to form a government of its own choice and complexion.

But in the May general elections the party made a fatal political mistake by embracing the splinter Fijian political parties into its fold to form a Peoples Coalition during the run-up to the elections. We have already dealt with the VLP. Whoever was advising Chaudhry and the FLP had not immersed himself/herself into the impetuous character of Fijian history and politics. Like his political foes in the NFP (Notoriously Faction-Ridden Politicians), the Fijians in the Peoples Coalition had convinced themselves that it was only in the company of FLP that they could find new jobs as Ministers and Backbenchers. Some Fijian politicians were merely using the coalition with the FLP to achieve their dreams of becoming Prime Minister of Fiji after the May elections.  

Having demolished the once invincible and faction-ridden NFP, as well as the chiefly sponsored and Rabuka led SVT, Chaudhry however found himself chained to a new 1997 Constitution with its mandatory provision for power sharing, entitling any political party with more than 10 per cent of the seats in the Lower House to a place in Cabinet (in proportion to its percentage of seats). The party with the most number of seats provided the Prime Minister, who allocated portfolios in Cabinet. Because of this provision for a multi-racial cabinet, the parties in the Peoples Coalition formed only a loose coalition among themselves, leaving the details of power sharing and leadership to be decided after the elections. More importantly, the politics of race was, for once, relegated to the background because both the coalitions, the Peoples Coalition and the SVT/NFP/GVP Coalition were multi-racial in character, at least for electoral purposes.

Chaudhry charms and alarms Taukeis

It is no secret that disgruntled Fijian politicians under the guise of Taukeism played a leading role which set the stage for George Speight and his henchmen to overthrow the Chaudhry government. Land and race was mixed with politics, even though these sensitive issues were not on the voters minds. A Tebbutt Research on behalf the Fiji Times in April 1999 revealed that 26% of the voters thought unemployment was the most important issue in the election (Fijians 30% and Indo-Fijians 23%); followed by land issues/ALTA (14% - Fijians 8% and Indo-Fijians 21%). According to SVT official Jone Dakuvula, a SVT-inspired agitation and destabilisation against Chaudhry began almost immediately after Chaudhry’s win. Jim Ah Koy, who was Finance Minister in Sitiveni Rabuka’s last government, while distancing himself from Speight’s take-over of Parliament, said he understood the Speight’s groups frustration and anger. He blamed the Chaudhry government’s ‘arrogance and obduracy in not listening to the sensitivities of the indigenous Fijians’.  

Chaudhry sought to introduce a Land Use Commission to restructure land ownership. On 3 April 2000, based on World Bank Report and other reputable sources, Chaudhry declared Fiji would remain poor as long as the land remained underdeveloped. That ‘development’ required larger plantations and more secure titles in order to attract investment. Chaudhry also offered small Indo-Fijian growers $28,000 each to leave their farms and proposed that leases be extended for 60 years at the current low rents. Both the Council of Chiefs and the NLTB opposed these measures, accusing Chaudhry of favouring the Indo-Fijian tenant farmers and undermining the Council of Chiefs. Ironically, as the plight of the Indo-Fijian farmers worsens, with frightening consequences for the econony in general, the Interim Administration has agreed to pay the displaced farmers $28,000 or less depending on their circumstances.  

On the day of Speight’s coups, about 5,000 people marched through Suva, demanding Chaudhry’s removal, following a similar march on 28 April. Marchers denounced the Government’s planned changes to land use, accusing it of moving to ‘usurp land’ from native landowners. They also attacked Chaudhry for showing ‘disrespect’ for the Council of Chiefs. The marches were called by the Fijian chauvinist Taukei Movement and led by Apisai Tora, who lost his parliamentary seat in the general elections. Tora revived the Taukei, which also staged marches and carried out racial attacks on Indo-Fijian citizens and politicians as a prelude to the 1987 coups.

SVT secretary Jone Banuve gave his endorsement to Speight as he entered the besieged Parliament to meet him. He also issued a statement in the SVT’s name, saying: ‘We will never accept the reinstatement of the Chaudhry, nor any non-Taukei leadership’. The SVT’s parliamentary leader, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola, said he knew nothing about the statement. Whether or not Kubuabola, the principal architect of the 1987 coups, knew of the statement, most of the Fijian politicians and leaders were attempting to leverage favourable outcome. While Sitiveni Rabuka issued a statement saying there should be ‘no amnesty’ for Speight and his followers, his ambiguous position was summed up in comments to the media: ‘I sympathise with your [Speight’s] cause, but I don’t agree with your methods.’

Tora, like Rabuka, said he sympathised with the cause but did not approve of the methods. He said the Taukei Movement had its own plan which he says was a much more logical approach.

Chaudhry, on the other hand, had impressed and charmed even some of the die-hard Taukei members with his leadership qualities. Taukei activist Sivoki Mateinaniu said members of the Taukei Movement and Fijian politicians should learn from Chaudhry. ‘Mr Chaudhry’s policies are simple. He is just trying to implement what he promised; unlike the SVT government who forgot its election promises as soon as they were elected. Now the Fijians are still confused because our so-called leaders forgot to protect us in the [1997] Constitution. They did not even formulate legislation to protect our cause’, Mateinaniu said. ‘In the 1999 elections, they could not promise the Fijians anymore because they had failed to deliver in 1992 and 1994’. He called on Fijians not to listen to the hollow calls to disrupt stability and good governance. ‘The Taukei Movement now supports Mahendra Chauhdry’.

Emperor Without the Prime Ministerial Robe

It was a remarkable transformation on Mateinaniu’s part and an honest and accurate assessment of Chaudhry’s leadership qualities. As the veteran politician and political commentator Sir Vijay Singh observed that, ‘Of all the major political parties, Mahendra Pal Chaudhry alone retained a clear vision of his party’s constituency-workers and farmers, the poor, and the deprived’ of all the races in Fiji’. Furthermore, the FLP had an extensive network to communicate that message. The Fiji Public Service Association, of which Chaudhry was the head, reached out to the public sector. He was also able to galvanise the farming community through the National Farmers Union, of which he was the head.

The Labour candidate, Pratap Chand, as head of the Fiji Teachers Union, was able to reach out to primary and secondary teachers who play an educative role in our muti-racial community. For many Indo-Fijian voters, the NFP’s, and in particular its leader, Jai Ram Reddy’s, achievements on the promulgation of the 1997 Constitution and talk of racial harmony were abstract issues. Also, the coalition with Rabuka’s SVT was insignificant. As Sir Vijay put it, ‘in restoring the democratic constitution’, Rabuka ‘did the Indians no favour’. He ‘restored what he had stolen in the first place’. The FLP also promised policies and initiatives of its own: the removal of the 10% Value Added Tax (VAT) and Customs Duty from basic food and educational items, review taxation on savings and raise allowances for dependants, provide social security for the aged and destitute, and lower interest rates on housing loans.

The FLP had caught the peoples imagination. It was ‘Time for a Change’.  

And it was indeed a refreshing political change of scene.  

The voters of Fiji elected by a landslide the ‘Peoples Coalition’ consisting of the FLP, the Party of National Unity (PANU) and the Fijian Association Party (FAP), with Labour winning 37 of the 71 seats, enough to govern on its own. However, it was the beginning of the end of Chaudhry’s government. The root and arguably the most significant cause of the demise of the Chaudhry government was not the Taukei Movement marches, the puppeteer George Speight and his financiers or Chauhdry’s arrogance but (i) the provisions of 1997 Constitution of Fiji, and (ii) the non-Fiji Labour Party Fijian politicians in the ‘Peoples Coalition’.  

At the end of the day, these Fijian politicians had entered the government not on the platform of multi-racialism but as representatives of the various fractious Fijian political parties. They had racial and communal outlooks both in history and their pronouncements.

The Constitution and the election results had left the other half of the Fijians to brood, sulk, make political, provincial and tribal alliances, and plot or if necessary, to club their way back to political power under the guise of indigenous rights. Chaudhry had inherited a ‘Divided House of Representatives’ and as a result his antagonists were able to run through and occupy it illegally. He became a ‘Fall Guy’. Race and not tribalism triumphed on that fateful day, 19th of May 2000. The failed coup was executed to effectively oust his Fijian Association Party (FAP) and other Fijian guests from the House, who should not have been invited as his honoured guests in the first place under the 1997 Constitution. Chaudhry-the King Maker-had overnight become an Emperor Without the Prime Ministerial Dhoti (Indian sarong).  

The 1997 Constitution, with its provision for multiparty government, had made him both the victor and the vanquished. His political gurus also slavishly allowed him to be dictated by Ratu Mara in the formation of his new government. As we have already pointed out, Chaudhry was caught with his Indian night political dhoti down in the company of ‘liu muri’ Fijian political bedfellows. Pre and post-cession Fijian history was repeating itself.

The new Constitution had brought Fijian political quarrels to the Fiji Labour Party’s doorsteps. Chaudhry, the ‘misguided saint’, foolishly opened the political and multi-racial gate to his FLP-led government and in the process the ‘devils’ ignominiously and unceremoniously bundled him out of the political kingdom. ‘The King is Now Politically Dead but the Memory of Fijian Infighting Still Lives On’.  

To be continued: The Fijian Seeds of Chaudhry’s Troubles and Downfall

Previously, Part One:
http://www.fijileaks.com/home/the-chaudhry-rabuka-coalition-cake-crumbles-we-revisit-2000-to-remind-chaudhry-and-others-pushing-for-coalition-politics-in-fiji

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4 Comments
Chiku
23/8/2017 08:12:40 am

Mahendra Chaudhry started as a good leader with a proper feel of the pulse of the ordinary people, the farmers and workers whose caused for better work conditions and returns he ably championed. But then greed got the better of him when he became a politician who tended to concentrate power in his hands and alienate even his close associates with his arrogant leadership style. Chaudhry's fall from grace is largely of his own making. Hopefully history will be charitable and remember him for the courageous way he stood up against Rabuka's racist regime and Speight's fascist persecution.

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Tomasi
23/8/2017 08:10:51 pm

Well said Chiku. So often in life, we forget the good that people have done because our natural tendency is to focus on the negative. Mahen has been maligned by some and somewhat given the shrug my many as unworthy to be given another chance. Similarly for Rabuka. These two men are ordinary human beings who have captured our public attention because of politics. It is human to be not perfect. It is human to fail. It is human to err.

However, must we condemn people who have made mistakes but have regretted their actions and have demonstrated a genuine desire to undo their past and make things better ? Must we always allow the negatives in our past to determine how we perceive the future? Must we condemn people for their past history and never allow them the possibility for change, reconciliation, and restoration?

We often exercise harsh judgement criteria for others we do not really understand? Yet we praise others that are like us, not because they are perfect, but because we are just blind to see our own inadequacies. It’s called blind spots or selfishness. Truth be told, no one is perfect, we are all humans, and we will never find perfect leaders on this side of the garden. But I would think it more logical to believe that people can become better when they have learned from their past sins and errors and are determined and committed to undo the wrongs they have committed to make things better.

Mahen and Siti have done serious wrongs and they may have learnt from that. Let us never condemn them because of their past. Let us give them the chance to make things better for Fiji. After all, like all other leaders contesting 2018 elections, we must shine the lights upon them and determine whether or not they genuinely deserve our trust.

There is no doubt that Bai and Khai are much worse characters than many ordinary people know. They have changed the meaning of national leadership in Fiji. They have become rulers of a very dangerous type and Fijian society will deteriorate. We do not need rulers but representatives and leaders. We need people who are humble to serve, but capable and confident to lead. I can see some in our 2018 political menu of leaders. That is not the case for Bai and Khai, for they absolutely a rare breed. Bai and Khai are transforming our nation into a garden of zombies, where people become slaves without even realizing it.

I would rather give Rabuka and Mahen the chance to be heard, judged and measured with other contestants.Let us hear them all, make them present a full account of themselves. Then let us judge them. Will Bai and Khai ever give us the chance to give full account of how they have robbed us and dictated over us since December 2006? No, never. You be the judge.

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Ratu
24/8/2017 10:09:06 pm

Tomasi, you contrast Chaudhry and Rabuka with Kgaiyum and Bainimarama, but fail to mention Biman and Colonel Pio Tikoduadua. The latter stand head and shoulders above the other four you mentioned in the integrity stakes and therefore needs to be supported. Rabuka has lost confidence big time and his lack of depth shows very clearly on national TV. The Marama Roko Tui Dreketi is a far more credible leader for SODELPA than him. Why her party still sticks with Rabo is just mind boggling when the whole nation can see that he is well past his Use By Date

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Rajend Naidu
2/9/2017 03:32:53 am

Editor,
Fraudulent Election
We read in the Financial Times article ' Kenya's top court nullifies result of presidential vote ' ( 2/09 ) that this is an unprecedented ruling, the first of its kind in Africa, which deals a severe political blow to incumbent president Uhuru Kenyetta.
A new vote is to held within 60 days.
Veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga had challenged the election result in court claiming widespread rigging.
" The declaration [ of Kenyetta's win ] is invalid, null and void " said Judge David Maraga.
Reading the ruling in a packed courtroom he said that the electoral commission had " failed, neglected or refused to conduct the presidential election in a manner consistent with the dictates of the constitution ".
Mr Odinga alleged that many result forms from polling stations were forged and that the electoral commission's computer systems were tampered with. He also claimed that his supporters in opposition strongholds were intimidated by senior government officials.
Mr Odinga said after the court ruling " This is a triumph for the people " and that the electoral commission had committed " treasonable acts " and that the Opposition would be " unstoppable " in the re-run of the vote.
He said the commission officials responsible for the irregularities " belong in the jail ".
State officials who are party to perverting the will of the people in a truly free and fair election do indeed belong in jail.
What surprises me is that international observers which included former US presidential candidate Senator John Kerry gave their approval that this Kenyan presidential election was conducted properly.
How did they manage to do that?
Was it a coincidence that the chief of the election IT system was murdered just days before the election?
Surely one must smell a rat when something like that happens on the eve of the election?
It's great that the Kenya Supreme Court has made this unprecedented ruling. Hopefully it will embolden the courts in other parts of Africa and elsewhere to better scrutinise so called " free and fair " elections conducted by the mob in power.
Sincerely,
Rajend Naidu

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